With vascular disease being a leading cause of preventable death and disability in Canada, you want to know that access to time-sensitive care to save a life or a limb is always available close to home.
With the help of donor investments, reimagined vascular healthcare will be available at Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) through the development of a hybrid operating room (OR).
A priority for the PRHC Foundation’s Campaign for PRHC, the hybrid OR means specialized clinical teams can perform multiple open and minimally invasive operations on the same patient on the same day and in the same room, allowing them to treat complex conditions with greater precision, less risk, and faster recovery.
“This is one of the most exciting opportunities for innovation in the hospital’s recent history, taking PRHC to the frontiers of minimally invasive surgical care,” says PRHC Foundation president and CEO Lesley Heighway. “Already a leader in delivering a wide range of minimally invasive services, PRHC continues to revolutionize its programs to better meet the needs of our growing and aging community.”
PRHC’s vascular program currently serves a population of more than 600,000 people, with patients coming from Peterborough City and County, City of Kawartha Lakes, Northumberland County, the Haliburton Highlands, and the Region of Durham. Many vascular patients face multiple serious conditions like ruptured aneurysms, blockages, or severe clotting and are unable to undergo multiple consecutive surgeries. This makes their care complex and time-sensitive.
“The vascular system is one of the most important systems within the body. It is a highly trained network that connects all the organs and all of our tissues so that we can function normally,” says Dr. Heather Cox, deputy chief of surgery at PRHC and also a vascular surgeon and the site lead for vascular surgery.
“The network includes the arteries, the veins, and the lymph nodes from head to toe, and this channel allows for all of the nutrients that we need to function, to think, to speak, to move, and to feel well and without pain.”
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While the technology to treat multiple vascular issues in a single surgery already exists, PRHC’s current operating rooms are unable to support it.
“Traditionally, if a patient with multiple, challenging vascular conditions were to have their care in a non-hybrid OR setting, they would have one procedure and recover, then have the second procedure and recover — extending the length of treatment longer than necessary, if their health would even allow it,” Heighway explains.
“Having a hybrid OR at PRHC will give vascular patients a chance to avoid life-threatening waits, difficult transfers, and repeated surgeries — right here, closer to home, with their support system nearby.”
A hybrid OR combines the strengths of a traditional operating room and an interventional radiology suite, supporting imaging, minimally invasive interventions and open surgery for the same patient at the same time.
“The benefit of having a patient in a hybrid OR includes having fewer procedures, having very high-risk procedures done in a safer or minimally invasive way, and having multiple experts at the table at the same time,” says Dr. Cox. “The patient gets the optimal care in the most efficient way.”
For example, with the appropriate technology in place, a patient who needs a procedure typically done in an interventional radiology suite, as well as a procedure typically done in a surgical suite, could have both procedures done at the same time, reducing overall risk and recovery time.
“A hybrid OR means you’d be able to do all of that in one setting, so you would minimize the number of procedures, the time it takes to care for the patient, and decrease the risk that would come with having to do all of that in the interventional radiology suite or all of that in the surgical suite,” Dr. Cox says.
By having multiple procedures done in a single intervention, the time spent setting up each operating room is reduced as well. This is crucial considering PRHC currently has only four vascular surgeons using two dedicated operating rooms to perform more than 1,000 vascular surgeries each year-the equivalent patient volumes for six surgeons.
“Our patients in particular are so ill that having the ability to do complete care in a timely fashion goes a long way,” says Dr. Cox. “It’s saving a life. It’s saving limbs. It’s avoiding a stroke. It’s avoiding an aneurysm rupture.”
The state-of-the-art hybrid OR will be the most technologically advanced operating room in the region, with cutting-edge tools and the ability to accommodate multiple specialists at the same time.
Given that the government does not fund hospital equipment or technology, Dr. Cox and her colleagues are counting on generous donors to fund the hybrid OR that will transform care for thousands of PRHC patients.
“I would like donors to know that they’re making a huge difference, not only in the individual care of each patient, but to our community as a whole. If we’re saving lives and saving limbs, our whole community is doing better.”
Since 2020, the PRHC Foundation has raised $52.9 million in support of the Campaign for PRHC, which has already begun to transform care and reimagine healthcare closer to home.
“It’s donors who will make it possible to bring a hybrid OR to PRHC for the first time,” says Heighway. “Minimally invasive intervention, including a hybrid OR, is one of the priority areas of care in the Campaign for PRHC because it’s critically important for some of PRHC’s sickest patients — people who need complex, time-sensitive, life and limb-saving care.”
“I think it’s really important that our donors appreciate that they are building a better community, building a stronger community, and that they’re investing in the people around them — their neighbours,” adds Dr. Cox. “It’s an investment in healthcare, but it’s also an investment in the community in which you live.”
To learn more about bringing a hybrid operating room to PRHC and to make a donation, visit the PRHC Foundation website at prhcfoundation.ca or call 705-876-5000.
This branded editorial was created in partnership with the Peterborough Regional Health Centre Foundation. If your organization or business is interested in a branded editorial, contact us.
